The key patents covering a 3D printing technique called "laser sintering" are set to expire in the next year or two -- there are a bunch of them, so they'll trickle out -- and this will radically reduce the price of printing and printers.

katz kiely's insight:

Key patents are set to expire over the next couple of years, opening the doors for a new wave of cheaper, open source #3dp innovation

Look, you probably don't have a 3D printer. But if you do and you want to really scare the crap out of your friends you need a humanoid robot head like MAKI, the "emotive robot" that you build with 3D printed parts plus third party tech.

A daily calorie tracker. A lifeline to a 911 operator. A real-time sign language translator. These are just a few of the thousands of entries submitted to Google's If I Had Glass competition, which ended on Wednesday.

katz kiely's insight:

We've waiting for google glass for a long time. So how did Google soft launch them? They opened a competition for the "bold and creative" early adopters. Not only did the first possible owners have to fork out $1500, but they had to tweet (#ifIhadglass) ideas of what they would do with them if Google were kind enough to allow them into the first owner tribe.

Unsurprisingly, the ideas are brilliant. I will attempt to resist them when the are launched at the end of the year. But I can't promise anything.

Bioprinting uses a 3D printing process to create synthetic human tissue. One day it could therefore be used to print replacement human organs. This video by ...

katz kiely's insight:

We are so much closer to the future than we think we are. Bio printing is just around the corner. Replacement organs made of our own cells will be far more likely to be successful. If you can get past the presenter... this is really worth a watch

The blogosphere has been cybersalivating over the potential debut of Google Glass supposedly to arrive in time for the Christmas holidays, 2013. As if the $1500 price tag is a reasonable price point for the Average Joe consumer?

katz kiely's insight:

For all you lovely folk who have looked incredulously at me when I talk about contact lenses being a real contender in the wearable #AR space, Innovega launched its prototype mega pixel eyewear, iOptik at CES in January. They accomodate the wearers prescription .. and won't make them stand out like an uber geeky sore thumb. #genius.

Great article. I started b.tween 10 years ago. The point was to bring film makers, TV and web producers, mobile officianados and games designers to seed collaborative partnerships to imagine genuinely transmedia productions - one that engaged people across different media in different ways. That invited audiences into multi layered, immersive narratives and format. Here we are 10 years later still trying to figure out why collaboration does not happen between sectors.

WIll public intervention catalyse new partnerships? Watching that space

For some time now, it's been possible to create 2D samples of human liver tissue. These are one or at most two cell layers thick, and used for research purposes. According to Organovo's Chief Technology Officer Dr.

The Internet of Things isn’t just some futuristic concept — it already exists. But often badly. For it to succeed, it will need an economy supported by developers who can rely on open standards and APIs.

katz kiely's insight:

Great blog on how IoT will only realise its potential as a stepchange maker if the right ecosystem is allowed to flourish. IoT has be based on open technology, APIs... and let the innovators do their thing.

The European Space Agency have released a free app for owners of the Parrot AR.Drone – the iOS controlled home drone.

katz kiely's insight:

Owners of the Parrot AR. drone can download an iphone app and play an #AR game. The challenge is to place the markers on any object at home and attempt to dock the drone. Nothing new there then.

The interesting thing is that payers who get high scores can submit their data to ESA to be used to improve robot navigation. Your data could help ESA to develop a more automous, smarter space craft that could dock itself. Your real life data will be used to train algorithms. This is where crowdsourcing starts to get really interesting: ways of involving the public in scientific experiments in totally new ways

Imagine that the chips in your smart phone or computer could repair and defend themselves on the fly, recovering in microseconds from problems ranging from less-than-ideal battery power to total transistor failure.

katz kiely's insight:

Amazing! CalTech engineers have developed tiny self healing chips that will keep our smart phones up and running no matter what.

Metaio’s chip, which will be built into ST-Ericsson’s upcoming smartphone chipsets, offers a lot of help in making AR more battery-friendly. But its ideal application is in smart glasses, not smartphones.

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